Children of the Syrian civil war

According to UNICEF, the UN agency for children, an estimated 3.7 million Syrian children have been born since an uprising against President Bashar Assad erupted in 2011 and escalated into a civil war.

Esraa, 4, and her brother Waleed, 3, sit on the ground near a shelter for internally displaced persons in Aleppo, Syria.

Winda Farman Haji

In this photo, Winda Farman Haji, a 5-year-old from a town in northeast Syria, poses for a portrait inside the tent she shares with her family at a refugee camp in Iraq.

Winda's father worked as a lorry driver before the war. They fled in August 2012, but their troubles didn't end there. Her uncle died fighting ISIS in the ranks of the Iraqi Peshmerga.

Winda Farman Haji and friends

In this photo, Winda walks back to her tent after school alongside friends at a refugee camp in Iraq. Winda shows great talent in drawing and her parents say she is very impatient to go to kindergarten every morning.

Hamza Ali

Five-year-old Hamza Ali fled with his family from Aleppo, Syria to Turkey three years ago. Hazma's father often tells his children about the beauty of the land they left behind. He was a primary school teacher and a sports trainer in Aleppo until the family had to flee.

Syrian girls play with a phone

Two Syrian girls play with a cell phone at a mechanic shop where they live with the rest of their family in Damascus. Their older male siblings also work there, earning the equivalent of $5 a week since fleeing a suburb outside of the capital.

Syrian refugee in a classroom

A Syrian refugee girl sits in a classroom at a Lebanese public school where only Syrian students attend classes in the afternoon.

UNICEF says that one-third of Syrians under the age of 18 were born since the conflict began five years ago, their lives shaped by violence, fear and displacement.

A girl rides her bike

A Syrian girl rides her bicycle in a rebel-held northeastern suburb of Damascus.

Tala al-Faouri

Tala al-Faouri is a five-year-old refugee living with her family in a camp in Jordan. Just two weeks after the Syrian conflict started, Tala was born in the southern province of Daraa, where the civil war began, on March 28, 2011.

Tala's mother dreams of returning and raising Tala in Syria. "We were not rich, but we were not poor. We lived a fine life. God willing, she will live like we once did. We don't want more, or less, than that," she says.

A boy plays in a car

A Syrian boy plays in a vehicle in the al-Qaboun rebel-held northeastern suburb of the capital Damascus.

In total, UNICEF estimates that some 8.4 million children are now affected by the conflict, either inside the country or as refugees in neighboring countries.

Maria Al-Tawil

Maria Al-Tawil was born in Damascus just four months before the war in Syria broke out. Now her family lives in a camp in Idomeni, Greece.

She has experienced nothing but war, her mother told the Associated Press. "I have a lot of anxiety, she hasn't lived a good day in her life," she said.

Syrian children go to class

Syrian refugee children attend a class at a makeshift school set up in a tent at an informal settlement near the Syrian border in Jordan.

UNICEF says more than 80 percent of Syria's children have been harmed by the five-year-old conflict, including growing numbers forced to work, join armed groups or marry young because of widening poverty.

Syrian boy sells bread

A Syrian boy sells bread on a street in the rebel-held suburb of Tishreen on the outskirts of the capital Damascus.

"Nearly 7 million children live in poverty, making their childhood one of loss and deprivation," said Dr. Peter Salama, UNICEF's Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa

Boys play in Damascus

Syrian boys walk past pigeons in the main square of Damascus' landmark Ummayad mosque.

Forced from their homes and schools, orphaned by violence and drafted into work or fighting, a generation of Syria's children is being shaped by the conflict, UNICEF said.

Yasmine Abdulkarim

Five-year-old Syrian refugee Yasmine Abdulkarim poses inside her tent at an informal camp in eastern Lebanon. She was born in the province of Aleppo on October 15th 2011, but doesn't have any recollection of Syria.

"If we were in Syria, I would love to take her home, to the house she was born in but doesn't know," her mother Rukaya says. "I would take her to all the places we loved and she would love them too."

Syrian boy walks alone

A Syrian boy walks in a rebel-held northeastern suburb of Damascus.

"Five years into the war, millions of children have grown up too fast and way ahead of their time," said Dr. Peter Salama, UNICEF's Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.